**6. Conclusion**

Persuing at the information provided above there are a number of discernable patterns. One is the preponderance of pre-Linnean researchers interested in marine mammals who had a medical background of some sort. That is not surprising because medicine was the closest thing to science as a career existed until the eighteenth century. Also, being interested in medicine created more opportunities to dissect animals and, therefore, understanding of their internal anatomy that was particularly crucial in establishing the homology between cetaceans and the "viviparous quadrupeds." Yet, this positive influence was marred by the proliferation of encyclopedists who, for the most part, were uncritical compilers of other authors' information. However, the major impediment to any attempts to develop a natural classification for cetaceans was the insistence on classifying them by virtue of the environment in which they live, something that even diverted the thoughts of keen observers such as Ray and Artedi, despite of abundant evidence to the contrary having been collected since Aristotle.

Finally, we should not overlook the role played by intellectual inertia in the development of science. As Horder (1998) clearly demonstrated, scientists need to know the history of their field to avoid errors of the past, something that has also been argued for specific fields of biology (see Romero 2009, Chapter 1).
